* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*  New Zealand's MagicNZ e-zine
*  www.watson.co.nz/ezine.html
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Issue Number: #54
Date: Sunday 31st December 2000
Editor: Alan Watson
www.magician.co.nz
e-mail alan@watson.co.nz
================================
Hi here is the latest news
================================

1. Editors Message
2. Lance Burton Awarded - Best Entertainer
3. "The Blaine Game" - Jon Racherbaumer
4. New working magician's data base
5. Returned from a wonderful weekend in Belgium
6. Lecturing in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland
7. One of Juliana Chen's most avid fans
8. The Orchante Saga # 10
9. Diarise these events
10. MagicNZ e-zine archives
11. Subscription Management

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1. Editors Message
-------------------------------------
Message from Alan Watson - The Magic One

The magical Watson family wish you all a very happy and 
prosperous NEW YEAR.

Good point raised by Obie Obrien: "Would it be possible to have all
those who contribute to the magazine to write shorter paragraphs? I
notice in the last issue there were 2 paragraphs with 28 lines in each.
I think most people won't read these in full as it is hard to focus on
things like this."  Editor - I agree totally. Also please keep your
reports brief and to the point.

DON'T miss next weeks issue of MagicNZ e-zine - Peter Marucci article on
"Anyone remember the Electric Deck?" and also Gregg Chmara review on the
"Ultimate Dancing Hank".

Remember if you have any magic news drop me a line:
alan@watson.co.nz

-------------------------------------
2. Lance Burton Awarded - Best Entertainer
-------------------------------------
Message from Wayne Bernath (US)

Lance Burton the star of his own "Master Magician" show at the Monte
Carlo Resort & Casino recently was awarded "Best Entertainer" for the
fifth year and "Best Magician" for the sixth year in Entertainment
Today's Las Vegas Tourists' Top Choice Awards.

The annual survey of tourists sponsored by Entertainment Today Magazine
polls some 250,000 Las Vegas visitors annually and Lance Burton was
voted by a majority of them as the "Best Entertainer" and "Best
Magician."

Lance Burton's new TV specials are set to air on FOX Family in March.
Stay tuned for further information, as it becomes available. He taped a
segment of his latest annual television special "Lance Burton: Master
Magician: On The Road" in Louisville, Kentucky and other segments at The
Lance Burton Theatre, The Magic Castle and on the beach in Florida. This
year he added "Lance Burton's Young Magician's Showcase" to his TV
specials.

For information on "Lance Burton: Master Magician" call (702) 730-7160
or (877) 386-8224 at the Monte Carlo. Show times are 7 and 10 nightly
from Tuesday thru Saturday. Reserved seating tickets are $59.95
including tax for main floor/mezzanine and $54.95 for balcony seating.
The theatre seats 1,274 and doors open one hour prior to show time. A
bar is located in the theatre lobby. Check out Lance Burton's web site
at www.lanceburton.com. The price includes a full-color souvenir program
with each ticket.

-------------------------------------
3. "The Blaine Game" - Jon Racherbaumer
-------------------------------------
Message from Jon Racherbaumer (US)

"One who can only find his way by moonlight..."
- Oscar Wilde, commenting on the nature of a dreamer.

What more can be said about David Blaine that hasn't been said before,
ad nauseum? And of course press releases seldom reveal anything truly
personal or revealing. From my obscured vantage point, I have little to
add to what I wrote about David Blaine twice (in MAGIC magazine) My
third, breezily brief excursus, by the way, will be in the January
(2001) issue of MAGIC. My focus each time was about his approach, not
his supposedly inherent skills as a sleight-of-hand artist.

I hate to keep hammering on the same points, but few magicians seem to
get it. Blaine is primarily a creature created for and by television.
From the cocoon of his New York street-performing period, he initially
emerged as a hybrid television phenomenon, working as no one had done
before and was savvy enough to know that performance is about the
audience.

He, until "Frozen in Time," usually focused on spectators and human
existence itself. What was filmed or televised occurred in the hot-damn
here-and-now with all its glorious contingencies and grit. In fact, in
many ways he prefigured so-called "reality television" and shows such as
"Survivor" and "Big Brother." However, Blaine transformed this "primal,
see-it-right-now world" through post-production artifice. And whether
anybody likes it not, television is an incredibly powerful and
undeniably ubiquitous mass-cultural media form.

It is a "window to the world" for most people -the one they depend on
for transmissions of "reality"-live and direct, apparently unmediated,
and relatively uncontrolled. And Blaine, using a magician's prerogative
to create illusions, has created a representative "world" where the
street (usually grungy, "mean" ones) is his stage. The players are
spectators who happen to be there when filming took place. Then Blaine
played a mischievous interloper in their reality, a "reality" once
removed from a neatly edited "representation" and ours Given this mise
en scene, his most savvy ability, like the tricksters of myth, is to
create and work with contingency.

His sudden presence in the spectator's environment seems random, almost
accidental-a mere, monosyllabic figure in their path, between
situations, on the way to somewhere else...(God knows where?) He
interrupts them and exploits this opportunity to demonstrate something
novel, if not astonishing, with something as commonplace as a deck of
cards. In short, he plays with their boundaries of expectancy and
normality, momentarily trapping them only to set them free, making their
minds discombobulated and perhaps transformed. At first he looks much
like them, but then becomes something else. He's" there" and "not
there." He moves on. He moves in and out of "frames," in and out of
"places," a transient Lone Stranger dressed in black.

This may sound as hyperbolic as most of his press releases, but if you
carefully study his first two television specials, you will see what I
mean.

In my first article in MAGIC, I wrote:
"David Blaine is a man of contrasts, coming out of nowhere. He is open
and closed, forthcoming and mysterious; and has taken a path less
traveled to big-time Prime Time...and in terms of conventional
career-tracks-the kind magicians follow and expect-he is strictly an
anomaly."

Time has passed and most magicians still think that Blaine is an
anomaly. Others make harsher assessments, calling him "a fluke, a
no-talent, an overrated and overpaid opportunist of modest talents."

I disagree.

Blaine's talents are raw and not easily defined. Casual observers see
vanilla performances. He seems (as Jerry Sadowitz mocks) like he should
be named David Bland. And admittedly there is an inscrutable placidity
about his appearance-which is a cross between Chancey Gardner (in the
film, "Being There") and the Man Without a Name (Clint Eastwood) from
Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns.

His body language is "cool" and a calculated, confident, interior
intelligence leaks out like time-lapse photography. He mumbles, "Let's
try something...maybe...ah..." and then there are all those sudden "spikes"
of drama. His muted voice (like a junkie coming down) is monotone,
sounding a bit like Stephen Wright, the comic. This adds to his
ambiguous, Rorschach-type persona.

But regardless of what anybody says pro or con, Blaine is on a roll.

However...

For him to stay on a roll, he must return to his roots. He must express
his persona in different, more forceful ways. Another "Street Magic"
special would slow his momentum. Déjà vu doesn't cut it, although
"one-shot wonders" often get three or four shots in television. Right
now there is talk about a feature film. De Niro is interested and (the
screenwriter of "Fight Club") has apparently signed on. If this happens,
it won't be easy. The tricky part will be finding ways to successfully
expand Blaine's trickster-character, making it a sustained, interesting,
compelling, and dramatic presence for 106 minutes in a feature film.

So far Blaine's work remains episodic. In a feature film, he must do
more than use a magician's prerogative to create illusions. He must also
be part of a character-driven, representative "world" above and beyond
"the street" and he must interact with other characters (actors) rather
than unsuspecting, ordinary street-people. But anything is possible.

Now that the ice has melted, what remains to be remembered? Like other
episodes of neo-television, very little reverberates beyond the
day-to-day coverage. With hundreds of network and cable channels sending
out signals, images, simulations, and "stories" 24-7, who remembers what
happened yesterday? The public, for the most part, no longer talks about
"Frozen in Time."

But the always-restless-natives of magicdom were still abuzz. If Net
head gossip is any indication, many magicians thought that Blaine's last
show was a stinker, light on the magic and heavy on hype.
(Hype-o-thermia, as one wag put it.) Their gossip doesn't matter. ABC,
the media, and loyal Blainiacs felt differently. The media rocked. Every
newspaper except the Christian Science Monitor covered the Ice Skit,
flushing out unlikely commentators from every quarter. Even a writer
from the ultra-hip, liberal-chic Village Voice was moved to comment,
calling Blaine's stunt "X-treme Performance Art." He wrote:

"Blaine is reviving an old vaudeville tradition: the death-defying act.
His last piece, in which he lay six feet under in a Plexiglas coffin for
a week, was supposedly a stunt Houdini wanted to do. Blaine's girlfriend
told the Daily News that next 'he may try to take a bullet.' Of course,
performance artist Chris Burden did that in 1971, as the death-defying
urge moved into the art world."

Notice the verbal difference? "Taking a bullet" is not the same as
catching one.

To me, "Frozen in Time" had an unsatisfactory, disjunctive rhythm.
Jumping back-and-forth from the melting ice to the trick-episodes broke
the spells of both "scenes." The frenetic energy of the actual site,
except for Lynn Swan's breathless, pre-game patter, was undifferentiated
and undramatic. Compared to the X-treme coverage of the X-treme event,
Blaine was almost catatonic before he was encased in the ice.

When he laconically drawled that he was entering a frosty, see-through
crypt to "challenge every human fear," nobody thought he was climbing K2
or weathering "The Perfect Storm." Yet if you listened to the clamorous
coverage, you heard over and over the same litany of fearsome
possibilities: muscle spasms, frostbite, blood clots, exhaustion, and
hallucinations. And if that wasn't enough, you had a deadpan-faced
Blaine adding: "If I fall asleep and my face presses into the ice,
they'll have to cut my face off."

Nobody laughed...
....at least not right away.

Nevertheless, you must admit that when Blaine finally emerged from the
ice, it was pretty tense. Even Bill Kalush looked worried. Blaine
slumped like he had survived a catastrophe he couldn't remember. Unable
to lucidly talk, he looked bewildered-as if he had indeed died yet was
still conscious. If he was faking, De Niro take note; the guy can act.

Regardless, let's give the guy some credit. He withstood a
self-inflicting, brain-numbing, and body-punishing ordeal. Try imagining
any celebrity-magicians putting themselves to a similar test. Blaine
actually did something potentially dangerous. In the cosmic scheme of
things, his endurance test may be as silly as escaping from a
straightjacket while hanging upside-down. But it was more believable
than Penn Gillette catching a bullet between his teeth and his payday
was bigger.

As mentioned earlier, the televised representation of the actual "test"
site flattened out and diminished everything. Eyewitnesses had a
different experience. Matt Fields, who visited the site, wrote:

"This time he's smack-dab in the middle of the 'Crossroads of the World,
' New York's Times Square, in the street level atrium/lobby of the ABC
"Good Morning America" studios at 44th Street and Broadway...If you've
never seen this area at this time of year, it's only a little less busy
than it is on New Year's Eve when they drop the ball. Thousands and
thousands of people need to walk by Blaine just to get down the street.
For a bit of a closer gawk you can wait on line and see David in his
ice, obviously showing the strains of being enclosed and on his feet for
two days, but smiling and waving to the crowds...the impact on the
spectators is amazing. They wave, yell out things ('Hey! Want me to get
you a hot chocolate?') and they talk about him, mentioning his name (not
just 'that magician')."

Thomas Gaudette, another eyewitness, wrote:

 "I visited the icy prison on the first day (Monday) and can confirm
that it not only was a great publicity stunt, but that laymen were
freaking out. I listened to their comments. He accomplished his mission.
The New Yorkers I witnessed were very impressed."

I initially thought that the Ice Stunt was not going to be an integral
part of it; that Blaine would "break out" during the last five minutes,
triumphantly liberated from the ice with ice-chipping fanfare,
spotlights, and a cheering rabble. As it turned out, the third show
focused on Blaine and the endurance stunt, not the trick-episodes. This,
to me, was a blunder. The first two television specials focused on the
audience.

Viewers saw a filmed "representation" of what actually happened in the
streets and saw dramatic, human responses. This is what made him
celebrated in the first place: in-your-face tricks, in mean streets,
with ordinary people. Shifting focus away from the "magic" to the Times
Square hubbub was a disappointing strategy from an artistic standpoint.
From a ratings-boosting standpoint, it was brilliant.

Blaine first endurance stunt ("Buried Alive") was not a significant part
of the subsequent television show. It was a "prequel," a back-story, a
publicity-generating device. Its staging area was in the world, but
off-camera, and the media coverage was huge. It was also a bit like a
soap opera with no beginning, middle, and end; it was episodic and
continuous. It was, as Umber to Eco calls such things, neo-television.

That is, it is something remarkable and newsworthy for being televised;
for being on television as a televised phenomenon. Its coverage is
another event to eventually be covered. Over and over it can feed on
itself. There can be stories about the stories and coverage of coverage.
"Live" endurance stunts, like the publicity feats of Houdini, have such
saturated reality that it is best experienced through "a kind of filter
of preconceptions and expectations fabricated in advance by a culture
swamped in images."

So...

The episodic trick-part of the third installment of the Blaine Game was
marginal. How many do you remember? There was the trick where he
borrowed a woman's ring, accidentally dropped it down a grate, and then
rediscovered it inside a small liquor bottle found several feet away. He
upped the ante and instead of resuscitating a dead fly, he brought a
dead bird back to life in Central Park. He borrowed somebody's baseball
hat and produced a live snake from it-a sure way to evoke screams. Still
upping the ante and thumbing his nose at Too-Perfect Theorists, he asked
a scruffy guy to think of his girl friend. Then Blaine used a cigarette
lighter to burn a hole in his tee shirt, which he then presses against
his fleshy midsection to "frame" a tattoo of the guy's girl friend's
face! That's the sum-and-substance of the "magic show."

Otherwise there were some brief travelogue shots of Blaine walking alone
in an arid, desolate place and through an immense field of what looked
like sunflowers, looking nomadic, mysterious, and...perhaps, lost! What
was conspicuously missing (as I stated in an early assessment) was
Blaine "tapping into the primal roots of magic by breaking through
people's personal spaces, by penetrating the defensive threshold of what
ordinary folks are willing to believe and unprepared to contemplate."
That was the trickster everybody loves to watch and that is probably the
magician others magicians tuned in to see. Compare this "magic show"
with the last special. For the record, here is a quantitative breakdown
by the numbers of that first special:

BY THE NUMBERS
Actual running time (without commercials): 44 minutes and 50 seconds
Number of individual performances or scenes: 45
Cited Locations: New York City (Times Square), Atlantic City, New
Jersey, Dallas, Texas, Compton, California, San Francisco
(Haight-Asbury), Mojave Desert.
Number of on-site spectators, added together: 106
Number of females: 35
Number of males: 71
Number of stray dogs: 2
Number of different tricks performed: 26
Number of tricks repeated: 8
List of repeated tricks and the number of times they were performed:
Impromptu Levitation (7), Biting and Restoring Half-Dollar (3),
Wrist-Watch Steal (3), Meir Yedid's Arm-Twister (2), The Raven Coin
Vanish (2), Ambitious Card (2), Fechter Transposition Trick (2), Think
Of A Card (2), and Double-Card Change In Spectator's Hand (2).
Number of card tricks: 17
Number of coin tricks: 4
Number of other kinds of tricks: 5
Number of gaffs used: 6
Numberof dealer tricks performed: 7
Specifics: Devano Deck, Invisible Deck, Folding Coin,
Cigarette-Through-Half-dollar, Super Neck-Cracker Gimmick, the Raven,
Arm-Twister (mss.)
Number of flourishes: 6
Specifics: Coin Roll, Fingertip Fan, One-Hand Fan-Close, Hot-Shot Cut
and Card Spin (Daryl), Card Toss, Instant Replay (Paul Harris).
Easiest trick: Biting and Restoring a Half-Dollar
Most technically difficult trick: Daryl's "Snow-Shoe Sandwich"
Most impressive card trick: Hummer's Selection-Against-and-Behind-Window
Most impressive coin trick: Cigarette Through Half-Dollar
Most impressive trick in the entire show: One-Man Impromptu Levitation
Second most impressive trick: Think-Of-A-Card Divination
Best geek trick: Yedid's Arm-Twister
Type of decks used: Bicycle - Tally-Ho (Diamond-Circle Back)
Number of times a blue deck was used: 4
Number of times a red deck was used: 14
Most recognizable lay person: (tie) Deion Sanders and Emmit Smith of the
Dallas Cowboys football team.
Weirdest name of lay person: Fruit Loops
Number of basic card sleights used: 11
Specifics: Tilt, Bluff Pass, Double Lift, Top Change, Jog-Fan Control,
Classic Force, Riffle (Mental) Force, Snap Change, Flip Change, Coin
Switch, Mercury Card Fold
Technical Advisers: Michael Weber, Paul Harris, Harvey Cohen, Ray Cuomo
Most frequently uttered expletive: "Wow!"
Number of rejections: 2

Notable utterances by lay persons:
"I don't care if he makes a million or starves to death...It's
mind-boggling!"
"You is stupid!" (to another lay person)
"You don't have any tools?"
"I think he is not natural."
"This man is not right!"
"I'm kinda broke. Can you make money?"
 "Are you a guru of some kind? I just moved from Los Angles. Am I going
to have success?"
(Deion Sanders) "I'm going. I gotta go home and take a nap!"
(David Blaine) "I don't know if I'll be able to get off?" (prior to
levitating)

Ready Reference Guide to Select Tricks That May Catch Your Fancy:
(1) "Impromptu Levitation" (Ed Balducci) - Pallbearers Review
(July-1974), p. 755. Although it is credited to Balducci, the originator
is unknown, but it was shown to him by one of the original Harmonicats:
Erwin Levine. Finn Jon is also a great exponent of this impressive
levitation.
(2) Wrist Watch Steal: Stars of Magic - Francis Caryle
"Snow-Shoe Sandwich and Hot-Shot Cut" by Daryl - For Your Entertainment
Pleasure!
(4) "Convincing Tilt" by Daryl - The Last Hierophant (June-1980), p. 39.
(5)  "The Snap Change" - Marlo's Magazine #2 (1977), p. 158. This is
based on the "Visible Color Change" by Joseph Cottone. Popularized by
Marlo and J.C. Wagner.
(6)  Marc DeSouza's Color Change, The Trapdoor (originally invented by
Oscar Muniz)

In the end and despite its comparative lack of magic, "Frozen in Time"
his show helped ABC win the Sweeps. It finished 20th and almost 16
million people watched the show. Only "Law & Order" outdrew the "ice
man." I'm also told that the only "news story" of 2000 that exceeded the
amount of saturated and extensive international coverage given Blaine
was the Columbine Shootings; and that, my friends, is an impressive
factoid.

But what does it mean?

Maybe it's simply this?

Blaine understands what Houdini understood and what Uri Geller
understands. It's not what you actually do, but what they think you do
and have done. The rest then ferments in the massive, global
spin-machine until it becomes potentially mythic.

So...

Blaine's First and Second Acts have come and gone. He is now able to use
real money and his celebrity-capital to parlay his next dream-scheme.
You can expect him to do something different, something outrageous. He
is a risk-taker who puts everything that he is (whatever that may be) on
the line. He goes for broke and that's what I like about him. California
journalist, Marnelle Jameson calls Blaine "The Houdini of the Hoi
 Polloi" and quotes him:

"For me it's more about the people than the effect," says Blaine, who
calls his brand of magic "intimate," because he usually works
one-on-one. "My favorite part is when I connect. If there's no
connection, there's no magic."

The media, meanwhile, stands by. Investors keep investing. The money
keeps rolling in...and David, finding his way by moonlight, keeps looking
for those connections that produce the magic that feeds his dreams,
vexes his critics, and delights his fans.

His mother would have been proud.

----------------------------------
4. New working magician's data base
----------------------------------
Message from Dave Boyd (Aust)

I apologize to the many magicians who contacted me asking to be included
in the new working magician's database that is being added to my web
site at http://mountainmagicaustralia.homestead.com unfortunately my wife
collapsed in Sydney a few weeks ago while visiting our daughter. She was
rushed to hospital and had to have 5 hours of brain surgery. The
operation was successful, but it will be several months before she can
get back to her usual work

For those who are not familiar with the project. I am planning a Data
Base of working Magicians, listed by country, state. Showing type of
magic they perform, contact details and links to their web sight if
applicable. At the moment I am just asking those interested in being
listed to email me with the subject heading DATA BASE giving their email
address or if not on the net their snail mail address. I in turn will
send them a questionnaire for completion within the next couple of
weeks.

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5. Returned from a wonderful weekend in Belgium
-------------------------------------
Message from Tony Griffith (UK)

I have just returned from a wonderful weekend in Belgium where I
lectured for the MEPHISTO MAGIC STUDIO for their Christmas Market. It is
quite a funny feeling, lecturing in English, with two translators at the
same time.

Mephisto is a wonderful magic organisation, and is easily one of the
largest of its kind in Europe. I cannot speak too highly for the
wonderful hospitality given by Dirk De Grieve and his colleagues.
Nothing was too much trouble for them. If you ever visit Belgium make
sure you call in the Mephisto studio that is in the town of Kortrijk.

They will make you most welcome. Also while in Belgium you must take in
a patisserie shop, they are wonderful. At the same time make sure you
sample the Belgian chocolates. Although everyone seemed to speak English
it was nice to have Irishman Pete Levens attending the convention with
whom I could converse......even if it was in English Irish????

I have had a very good year.....slightly less shows in number, but much
more in £££££££s which is the important thing. In January (23, 24, 25) I
will be working a trade show at Earls Court in London, for a Belgian
firm. Then February will see me at the Kent Science Festival in
Canterbury (UK) for the 5th consecutive year with my 'Magic of Science'
show.

March will see Judith and me doing a lecture tour of Norway and Sweden,
while May will signal yet another return to the USA for lectures on the
East Coast.

-------------------------------------
6. Lecturing in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland
-------------------------------------
Message from Barry Price (US)

I just got back from spending a month in Scandinavia, lecturing in
Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The lectures went extremely well
and I believe I left our magic friends happy and sated with effective
sleight of hand.

-------------------------------------
7. One of Juliana Chen's most avid fans
-------------------------------------
Message from Jann Wherry Goodsell International President SAM

As one of Juliana Chen's most avid fans, I agree you should get her to
come to your "neck of the woods"!

Also congratulations to Jan & Steve Dacri for all their dreams and hard
work with their website.

----------------------------------
8. The Orchante Saga # 10
----------------------------------
Message from Tommy Orchard (The Amazing Orchante)(UK ex-pat Kiwi)

June 1958 - Goodbye Raupunga/Wairoa - Hello Auckland

My father is transferred to Manurewa, a town 14 miles south of Auckland
city, as Officer in Charge of the local police station. The police house
was filthy, run down, and in a dilapidated condition. Mum 'exploded' -
understandable considering we had just left a police house in Raupunga
which was only 4 years old! Mum was on the warpath! The New Zealand
Police Department didn't know what hit them, (made a nice change - it
had been me in the 'firing line' for the last 18 months or so). We were
re-located to Papakura - the next town, 5 miles south of Manurewa, into
rented accommodation - courtesy of the Police department, while a new
Police house was being built. 18 months later, we finally moved into the
new house.

For all you New Zealand magicians in Auckland, who work Shopping malls,
the South Mall shopping complex at Manurewa is where the new Police
house and Station was.. They, and a very, very large amount of lawn,
took up that entire area.  A tall Pine tree grew on the front lawn
(perhaps it's still there?)

Every weekend, starting Saturday morning around 10 a.m., I cut the
grass - got finished some time Sunday (I was allowed meal breaks and a
night's sleep) so, next time you're performing at South Mall, take a
good hard look at the size of the place - think of me pushing a lawn
mower - then, bow your head and shudder! And, what did the New Zealand
Police Department give me for months of my blood, sweat and toil - sweet
F.A. As far as I was concerned, slave labour was alive and well in New
Zealand. 

Sure, most kids mowed the 'family lawns' for pocket money -
usually done in an hour - not two bloody days on Government owned
property! Phew - I am sorry, but all that grass has been 'mulching' in
my system for 43 years. The only thing I gained from mowing the lawns
was access to the 2 stroke fuel in the mower, to practice fire eating
and blowing.. 2 stroke! -it tasted disgusting, but I persevered! (More
of this later!)

Where were we? Can't see for grass clippings - oh, yes - Papakura. Lived
there for 18 months, by which time I've turned 15 years old, and have
developed a Magic Act. The routine was - reach into the air, and a 'silk' 
pops magically into appearance, it's in the crook of your arm, in a
single fold of your coat sleeve. By throwing your arm straight out, the
natural springiness of the silk propels it into the air. Having caught
it, I rolled it up, blew on it, and it 'changed' into a red ball, which
I bounced on the floor and then caught - (not too difficult, if you've
got a ping-pong ball painted bright red, with a hole in it), and
switched it for a real one.

I then rolled it up and down between my fingers, 'vanished' it, then
re-produced it from behind my knee - popped it in my mouth, pretended to
swallow, tapped my head, and produced it apparently from my backside.
(That always got a laugh). Apparently bang ball on the back of neck,
then show ball in mouth. Apparently take from mouth, then place ball in
a clear container. Tap head again, and 'another' ball appears between
the lips. I repeated this very quickly - producing around 6 - 7 balls -
with the last one, I did a couple of 'moves', then went into the
multiplying (billiard) ping-pong balls. (I had two ball holders made out
of socks, with elastic in the open end at just the right tension to hold
the balls, but not too tightly). The last ball I blew on, and it turned
blue - 'vanished' it - 'picked' something from the air - stroked the
invisible 'something' 3 or 4 times, then, on the last stroke my fingers
pinched the corner of the silk, (which was in the ball, of course) and
instantly, a blue silk 'materialises' as I rapidly stroke downwards -
throw silk into air (for misdirection) and drop blue ball into my coat
pocket and palmed a thimble.

I passed the silk over the finger, whipped it away, and showed the
thimble had 'appeared' on my fingertip. I then went into a thimble
manipulation routine, and finished up with a thimble on each finger of
both hands (I had thimble holders under my coat lapels - made them
myself from cardboard). I then 'changed' one thimble into a coin, and
went into a 'Miser's Dream' routine - did the lit cigarette in the coat,
(no explanation necessary) and finished with a simple but extremely
strong piece of magic which always was my finale, no matter how much the
act itself was changed.. The effect (coat off, sleeves rolled up) - a
small piece of tissue paper, about the size of one piece of toilet
paper - set fire to it, at all times showing both hands empty - rub
ashes between palms, and produce a bank note in later years, I would
have 10 $20 (or £ notes) appear - now, that fooled the magicians!
Sometimes, on a good week, it was 10 £50 notes - not for long though -
food, petrol, Mr 10% etc. took care of most of it!

Whoops! I've run out of room - 'the Saga' continues next week - (that
is, if I've sobered up by then)

H A P P Y  N E W  Y E A R!

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9. Diarise these events
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New Zealand National Magicians Convention - Auckland
27th - 31st December 2001

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10. MagicNZ e-zine archives
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Back issues of the MagicNZ e-zine go to: www.watson.co.nz/ezine.html

Both the User Name and Password MUST be entered in lower case to gain
access.
User Name: ezine
Password: newzealand

When you enter the archive the e-zines are in issue order and are
coded. Eg 001nov0699.txt first three numbers (001) denote issue number,
then the date (nov06) and the last next two numbers the year (99)

If you want to print copies of MagicNZ e-zine go to:
www.watson.co.nz/ezine-archive

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11. Subscription Management
-------------------------------------
Our subscriber list is NOT made available to other companies or
individuals. We value every subscriber and respect your privacy.

To subscribe or unsubscribe from the MagicNZ e-zine:
www.watson.co.nz/ezine.html

MagicNZ e-zine is published weekly, late on Sunday night.

The opinions expressed in this e-zine are those of the individual
contributors.

Neither MagicNZ or Alan Watson can vouch for the accuracy or
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We reserve the right to correct any errors or omissions as we see fit.

>> This publication may be freely redistributed to other magicians if
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(c) Copyright 2000 Alan Watson